 is a collective of tech newsletters with an extensive reach.

 covering specialisms including: crypto, UX/UI design, and more. But it did not always look like that or work easily, according to TLDR CEO Dan Ni, who recalls the business' early administrative struggles when TLDR employed a team of two and was about to launch its second newsletter.

Every TLDR newsletter is supported by multiple sponsors - making it crucial for TLDR to manage and track customer relationships.

CaseStudyQuote

With so much back and forth with sponsors, Dan and his colleague spent a significant amount of time each week working on the shared documents.

As the business was set to launch its second newsletter the following month, its founder wondered if there was an easier way to manage and grow its sponsorship opportunities.

In May 2022 TLDR first learned about Sponsy.

Sponsy is a SaaS streamlining ad operations for media companies. Designed to 

, Sponsy is suitable for managing a range of publications: from newsletters to podcasts and social media.

With its powerful capabilities, Sponsy simplifies every step of the way for publishers, from booking ads right through to go-live.

Once TLDR decided on Sponsy, they were able to start using it quite quickly, according to Dan.

Since going live with Sponsy on that day in June 2022 TLDR has not looked back.

Over the past year, Dan and his colleagues at TLDR have gotten to grips with Sponsy's capabilities.

When asked about his favourite features, Dan struggles to choose just one.

"I think we're using pretty much everything" he responds enthusiastically.

Working with Sponsy's features - designed to help media companies to grow - has let TLDR do just that by 

With 250 clients (and rising) on their books, Dan cannot imagine how this would have been possible with Google Sheets (and 250 individual documents to navigate).

Dan is particularly impressed with the way Sponsy's customer portal has transformed his interactions with advertisers.

CaseStudyFigure

During TLDR's initial migration, advertisers told Dan how much they loved the new ad flow via the customer portal.

The Customer Portal serves as the central point for client communications at TLDR. As well as providing a place to
collect and curate assets, it provides TLDR with a 

simple way for its clients to engage with and approve sponsorship content.

 (without an email needing to be created...)

On its own, this feature has proven to be a significant time-saver for TLDR.

Sponsy understands the needs of media publishers - whether they are working across one publication or twenty.

Its inventory management system is engineered to make booking as easy as it can be. Through the platform, Dan and his team can perform a range of activities, including:

CaseStudyList

Managing ad slots

Track fill rates

Swap dates

Review customer assets

For TLDR, the biggest benefit of Sponsy lies in its 

This feature, together with streamlined approval processing and automations, keep TLDR and its sponsors on-track for success.

Once approved, the status of an advertisement automatically changes, thanks to 

 designed to keep TLDR's operations running smoothly and efficiently across the team.

As a solution built around the needs of media publishers, Sponsy pairs advertisers with the advertisements they have booked previously - ensuring clients and sales are always in the know.

This is particularly useful when considering new engagements. Sales representatives, for example, can see the booking history of each advertiser and make informed decisions about pricing.

Deep details like this help TLDR to transform its pricing strategy for maximum returns. Instead of being restricted to fixed ad slots, Dan and his team are now able to 

move advertisers towards budget ranges and campaigns incorporating multiple newsletter channels and editions.

Within 12 months of working in partnership with Sponsy, TLDR's operations have transformed in many ways, including:

Expanding from one to eight daily newsletters

Increasing readership from 300k to 4.5m

Engagement with more than 250 advertisers

Growing the TLDR team from 2 to 4

Above all else, this partnership has strengthened TLDR's relationship with its growing base of advertisers and increased its ability to expand its readership and portfolio of publications - while maintaining a 

Sponsy's enhanced features drive sales focus, efficiency, and exponential growth

How TLDR's lean team scaled effortlessly more than 8x with minimal cost

Sponsy's advanced features and automated workflow let founder focus on growth

How Demand Curve slashed its weekly ad operations by two hours per week

Publication managed

Hours saved every month

Additional revenue

Sponsy’s sophisticated metrics, advanced automations, and intelligent inventory management enable small teams to scale effortlessly.

Freeman Beals

How DTC created $48K in additional monthly ad space

Hours saved every week

Publications managed

Happy advertisers

Sponsy's deep insights and enhanced capabilities boost sales focus, efficiency and growth

Brian D'Erario

How Payload scaled up campaigns, channels and sales with ease

Dan Ni

With an audience of more than 19,000 leaders in the space industry, 

 is a US multimedia company focused on the business and policy of this rapidly developing economy. And, much like its readers and listeners, Payload is always on the lookout for 

new opportunities to grow its channels, as well as its revenue.

The media company hired its first sales professional, client partner Brian D'Erario, in February 2023. Brian combines a strong background in traditional media gained at Dow Jones with a deep understanding of digital, thanks to his time at the Morning Brew.

In this role, Brian works with clients to develop and execute advertising partnerships that drive business growth. While he focuses on sales, an operational manager concentrates on accounting: overseeing post-sales processes and back-end processes.

During his time working with the Wall St Journal, Brian learned that it's really important to 

recognize revenue on an earned-revenue basis.

He needed more than simple, top-line costs: he needed a way of tracking average costs and gaining deep insights into his revenue.

Brian began by creating an Excel sheet breaking down every single advertising dollar sold. It was time-consuming, but not a new process for Brian.

Payload needed to address an additional challenge. Since being so young, they needed to get advertisers in the door initially. The focus was less about the price for selling their product and more about what we they could do for companies in the industry.

Brian, however, recognized that this would change sooner rather than later. He explains:

The Payload team began looking for an easier and more effective way of increasing his understanding and scalability.

In February 2023, after meeting and reviewing offerings from several vendors, Payload's co-founder Ari Lewis put his trust in Sponsy to help his business 

expand its offerings beyond two newsletters (Flagship and Parallax), a podcast (Pathfinder) and webinars.

Sponsy is the SaaS working tirelessly to help media operators streamline and scale their ad operations by equipping them with the capabilities and data-driven insights they need to work efficiently and profitably.

During initial meetings, Payload found Sponsy's understanding of their concerns, recommendations and ability to 

tailor the platform to their exact needs.

While Payload was interested in Sponsy's capabilities for their 5x weekly newsletter, they found the platform's 

 (from podcasts and social media to editorial and any type of publication) especially attractive as the company moved forward.

Harnessing the power (and ease) of Sponsy

Less than a month after they began working together, Payload adopted the Sponsy platform for its expanding operations.

According to Brian, the adoption process was 

But that's just the start, thanks to the platform's ability to allow users to look at metrics within specific timeframes to understand average prices, availability and more.

“Specific timelines allow us to manage growth for our projections next year,” Brian adds.

While the Payload team agrees that the platform has been “very helpful”, they have been particularly impressed by Sponsy's responsiveness.

The platform provides Payload with easy-access to a range of data tailored to their exact needs.

. As well as informing future projections, this feature ensures data-driven decision making on price points, scheduling and much more.

Incorporating Sponsy into their operations allows Payload to use its resources and budgets more efficiently.

While the platform enables Brian to concentrate on client relationships, sharpen pricing and increase sales revenue, 

its powerful capabilities eliminate the need of two additional members of staff

Sponsy enables Brian and his colleague Audrey, the operations manager, to handle a range of once time-consuming tasks, including:

Managing revenue

Making and updating projections

Tracking inventory

Overseeing client assets

Since adopting Sponsy and scaling up operations in February, Payload's client partner has not looked back with achievements including:

More than 80% of the year's ad space sold by July

Successful launch of a third newsletter (Polaris)

Increased advertising revenue (without additional costs)

Effortless asset management

Greater customer engagement

While Payload's planning benefits from Sponsy's capabilities, Brian and his colleague Audrey recognize they have “underutilized” the customer portal and its vast potential.

Through this single location, advertisers can submit advertising materials to publisher-specified requirements, as well as reviewing and approving ads and tracking results.

Following initial, positive trials with advertisers, Payload's clients are now utilizing the portal's easy-to-use interface to 

reduce the time, effort and risk of error associated with traditional email communications.

Brian is enthusiastic about the possibilities, adding:

Brian feels the platform is particularly helpful for media operators who need to scale revenue operations quickly as opposed to building an Excel, which can quickly become “old and time-consuming“.

Neal O'Grady

 has been helping marketers to market better since its inception in 2009. Its newsletters provide businesses with the sharable knowledge and actionable advice they need to grow.

The focus? Connecting brands with their customers. That's why DTC's channels explain just how the world's leading direct-to-consumer brands do it (so readers can, too).

 offer insights into the latest trends, platforms, and partners.

Creating a brand like this is only possible with the support of its advertisers. DTC client success manager 

 ensures this following the signing of an ad placement.

Handling the full aftersales process for clients required Freeman to 

, as well GatherContent, a content operations platform.

It wasn't an ideal solution, according to Freeman:

He recalls the problems really came to a head during onboarding, explaining:

Freeman first learned about Sponsy from a colleague and hasn't looked back since.

Sponsy is the platform streamlining ad operations for media companies.

, Sponsy helps publishers manage sponsorships across a range of channels, such as newsletters, podcasts, and social media.

Implementing Sponsy was straightforward, according to Freeman:

Since implementing Sponsy, Freeman is able to perform his job in a way that's 

Onboarding, for example, used to involve a lot of back and forth with clients and sales but Sponsy has changed all that.

Of all of Sponsy's features, Freeman enthusiastically places its 

The system's easy access to data has transformed reporting for Freeman, too.

 required him to copy and paste information from Campaign Monitor into multiple spreadsheets - before sharing them with the client.

It was a time-consuming process for Freeman. He explains:

While Freeman describes himself as being possessed with “an insane level of organization”, he's relieved that Sponsy keeps him in the know.

Sponsy provides Freeman and his colleagues with an 

easy-to-understand overview of sponsorships and advertising

And the positive feedback for Sponsy isn't just within its team, as Freeman explains:

Introducing Sponsy has transformed operations at DTC in many ways in a very short time, resulting in its small team's ability to:

Scale its flagship DTC newsletter from 3 to 5x weekly 

Create $48K in potential additional revenue from DTC newsletter

Reduce time required for advertising operations by 40%

Cut new campaign creation time by 80%

Plan and launch a new daily newsletter: SimplifyAI

Sponsy's time-saving features have encouraged DTC's development into a much larger ecosystem. Alongside increasing its flagship newsletter to five editions per week and managing a podcast, the team has successfully launched a new newsletter (Simplify AI) and opened an academy offering courses and mentoring.

Looking back on his achievements, he comments:

 learning how to grow their businesses more efficiently.

Every week, their Growth Newsletter equips them with the top strategies and tactics used by fast-growing startups.

Demand Curve's founder Neal O'Grady understands the needs of entrepreneurs - as well as the challenges they face while 

Neal had a vision. To develop his newsletter into a growth marketing community, supported by 

However, Neal, who looks after every aspect of publishing, was short on time.

Every month, the Growth Newsletter offers 

While tracking and managing these relationships is crucial, it's not quick or easy without the right tool. Neal spent more than a couple of hours a week handling a range of administrative tasks - no easy feat when publishing a weekly newsletter.

While Neal had a custom system in ClickUp, he found it “janky” and “headache-inducing”.

Generating reports, for example, required him to create specific client views, while collecting ad copy was 

Neal knew there must be a more efficient way of managing these processes.

Demand Curve first heard about Sponsy in February 2023.

help lean teams efficiently scale up operations

, Sponsy supports publishers manage newsletters, podcasts and social media with ease.

Sponsy's powerful capabilities track and manage team efforts from booking ad space right through to post-campaign reporting.

As the modern, all-in-one sponsorship manager for publications, Sponsy is equipped with automated workflows that make repetitive tasks, such as 

, a thing of the past for Neal and his team.

As well as ensuring no step is overlooked, advanced workflows 

 for the founder - allowing Neal and his team to focus on growing their business, rather than servicing it.

Sponsy's Customer Portal provides a central location for the publisher and advertisers to communicate. Neal's clients no longer have to dig through emails to find requirements or stats - and it's delivering them with a 

The Customer Portal is built around the needs of users. For example, once an asset, such as a logo or image, is uploaded, it can be reused - reducing the hassle for advertisers.

Clients can also view information such as previous customer placements, advertising guidelines and stats in the Customer Portal, reducing the need of back-and-forth communication for each ad.

Sponsy plays a fundamental role in Demand Curve's future plans for 

The team behind the scenes may be small, but the founder knows that won't always be the case.

When issues arise, Sponsy makes it easy for teams to 

 - including copy changes - ensuring any customer service inquiry or doubt can be resolved quickly.

Sponsy also makes it easy to manage multi-slot (and channel) campaigns, thanks to bulk creation and update capabilities.

Like Sponsy, Neal understands that a platform is only as good as the support behind it. That's why he's most impressed with their 

While Sponsy works quickly, delivering powerful capabilities takes time. To stay ahead of the curve, Sponsy engineers are always looking for ways to help users work that bit faster, easier and better.

Introducing Sponsy 6 months ago has transformed operations for Demand Curve. The team has celebrated many achievements in that short time, including:

We're changing the way media companies operate.

Join us and you'll be in great company. Learn how teams around the world are maximixing their ad revenue and scaling with Sponsy.